IBM To Fight Illegal Music Distribution

IBM is planning to announce an enhancement to
its Electronic Media Management System that will prevent unauthorized
music distribution over the Internet.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the enhancement will be
offered to record companies and others later this quarter, and will
stop unauthorized music distribution via the likes of Napster Inc.

According to the WSJ, IBM said its improved system could work with
systems that store music files on thousands of PCs. The system
reportedly uses a concept called "superdistribution," pioneered by
such companies as InterTrust Technologies Corp., which locks a song,
awaiting payment, after it is played a certain number of times for
free.

In other IBM news, the company has signed a technology licensing
deal with LSI Logic Corp. [NYSE:LSI] intended to accelerate the
integration of high performance digital signal processor (DSP)
capability into custom chips for next-generation networking
equipment, wireless handsets and other advanced communications
products.

According to IBM, the ability to integrate the DSP along with other
functions onto a single system-on-a-chip can help manufacturers
reduce the size, cost and power consumption of these products.

Under terms of the deal, IBM has licensed LSI Logic's ZSP 400 DSP
core and software development and design verification tools.

LSI Logic's ZSP400 is reportedly a state-of-the-art, four-way
superscalar, high-performance dual-MAC (multiply-accumulate)
DSP developed in a fully synthesizable, five-stage pipeline design
that is easily migrated to different manufacturing processes. The
company said the architecture has been optimized to make it easy to
program, thereby improving programmer productivity and
time-to-market.

IBM said it will integrate the ZSP core into its Blue Logic ASIC
(application specific integrated circuit) library and modify it to
work with its open on-chip bus architecture called CoreConnect,
which reportedly lets customers quickly design customized chips
using a broad, industry-wide library of verified cores that are
ready for rapid assimilation into chip designs.